Federal Communications Commission FCC 18-61 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN AJIT PAI Re: Amendment of Parts 0, 1, 5, 73, and 74 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Posting of Station Licenses and Related Information, MB Docket No. 18-121; Modernization of Media Regulation Initiative, MB Docket No. 17-105 Nearly 90 years ago, the FCC’s predecessor, the Federal Radio Commission, first adopted rules requiring broadcast licenses to be posted. But it didn’t explain why. Nonetheless, these rules were expanded in future years to apply to new services deployed by broadcasters. Perhaps the motivation back then was to ensure that station authorizations, ownership, and contact information would be readily available to the Commission and the public. But today, the vast majority of this information is easily accessible via the Commission’s electronic databases. Moreover, in some cases, you can’t see posted licenses even if you want to; the transmitter sites at which stations are required to post them aren’t physically accessible to or viewable by the public. As a result, I’m skeptical that our license posting rules currently serve any useful purpose and look forward to reviewing comments from stakeholders discussing whether they should be eliminated. Thanks to the staff who worked on this item, including Steve Broeckaert, Michelle Carey, Martha Heller, Tom Horan, Jonathan Mark, Raelynn Remy, Alexander Sanjenis, and Holly Saurer from the Media Bureau, and Dave Konczal and Royce Sherlock from the Office of General Counsel. This might sound like a simple Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, but our team nonetheless had to go through our regulations with a fine-tooth comb to locate all the relevant rules. Indeed, the appendix containing the proposed rule changes is over six pages long.